Tensions continued mounting Thursday morning outside a federal immigration facility in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of an American woman by an ICE agent.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired three times into a vehicle driven by 37-year-old Renee Good, killing her, on Wednesday, and protests erupted around the city against the Trump administration's crackdown, and federal agents from various agencies faced off against demonstrators.
"You have thegovernor [Tim Walz] who said yesterday his National Guard is on standby tocome in if they're needed," said CNN law enforcement analyst John Miller. "Buthe reminded people that's Minnesota's National Guard whoare, you know, working for thepeople. We also saw in priorincidents where, in Los Angeles,in particular, where the White House and the Pentagon sent in National Guard from otherstates, in one case, the Marinesto guard these federal buildingsand facilitate the passage ofthese operations."
The demonstrators gathered around 7 a.m. to block the deployment of immigration patrols from a federal facility, and Miller predicated President Donald Trump and his officials could order more resources into the area.
"It certainly has thepotential to accelerate thiskind of encounter and thesekinds of clashes, and what youwill see is two differentthings," Miller said. "If this continues toescalate, one, the federalgovernment will send in moreresources. Don't be surprisedif we see National Guards or Marines or guardsdeployed from other statesfederalized by the president. Ifthis continues, but also do notbe surprised as we learn from George Floyd, as we learn from Ferguson, that protesters andactivists from other cities willflood into Minneapolis to saythis has become the battlegroundof this issue."
CNN's Ryan Young reported live from the scene that some agents appeared to be inflaming tensions and possibly leaving weapons scattered on the ground.
"What we're seeing is adifferent level of maybetraining per agent," Young reported. "There's someagents here who are trying touse de-escalation, and they'retalking with the protesters andtrying to walk them through it.Then there are other agents whoare literally havingconversations where they'reantagonizing the protesters,telling them to 'bring it,' if theywant to bring it, and they'rethey're using their body tophysically push people down tothe ground. We've watched thatin several different occasions.That happened right here on theline."
Young noted that federal authorities appeared to be dropping some of their equipment as tensions flared.
"The other thing that we'venoticed is some of theseskirmishes, it shows a level ofcontrol when it comes to theequipment," Young reported. "It doesn't seem toreally match what they should bedoing. We've seen several ofthe Border Patrol agentsdropping parts of theirequipment. There are Border Patrol agents here with bodycameras on, some of those havefallen to the ground. We've seensome of their agents in terms ofpepper spray fall to the ground."
"One of thethings that we've noticed is itseems like in the last half houror so, more agents have arrived, and not only agents from Border Patrol, but it seems like some Homeland Security specialresponse teams have arrived here,as well," he added. "I'm just going to walkyou to the front of the linehere and show you this. So this,for instance, this gentlemanright here has been challenginga lot of the agents and gettingin their faces nonstop. He'sbeen doing a lot of the talkingback and forth. You see, as welook down this line here, thatyou can see the faces of people.So this has been veryinteresting to watch as peoplehave been screaming that thereare murderers."
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